Soil Health Matters
Soil health matters – a lot. Find out why it matters to your agricultural operation – and learn what you can do to improve the health of your soil from some of the nation’s leading experts on soil health management systems.
NRCS District Conservationist Jay Fuhrer says the path to soil health is different on each farm. Cover crop and cash crop selections and sequences should be chosen to fit the farmer’s resource concerns and priorities, and the means available at that farm, he says. Learn more.
Make your soil healthier. If you want a more productive, self-sustaining soil that will improve rather than degrade with time, take a few lessons from Mother Nature. That’s the advice from soil health experts who have worked with farmers to regenerate degraded soils. Find out how.
Don’t till it. Cover it. Most farmers with experience in improving soil health have converted from conventional tillage to no-till farming, then over time, added cover crops into their farm operations. Find out why.
Add organic matter. If you want to build organic matter and improve your soil health, take a lesson from Mother Nature, urges Dwayne Beck, manager of South Dakota State University’s Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, South Dakota. Learn how.
Get more from cover crop mixes. There’s a reason most farmers who start with single species cover crops eventually move to mixes. There are multiple reasons they use a variety of plant species in a cover crop mix. Read to learn more.
Innovate to improve soil health. Cover crops, a traditional conservation practice considered old-fashioned by many in modern agriculture, are being used in new ways by innovative farmers to improve their soil’s health. Learn why and how.
